Of Independence and Liquors. . .

Sunday, September 4, 2011

First post of September, and I'm lazy as shit, so I'm just gonna narrate my way through the photos.

The Malaysian Students Association(MSA)'s Merdeka Night was yesterday night, and I participated, along with some final year and graduating friends of mine. In theory, this was supposed to be a celebration of Malaysia's Independence Day. In fact, the Merdeka Nights when I was in my Year 1, 2 and 3 were carried out with that thought in mind. Hence there were always performances(mostly sketches) related to Malaysia, most of the time we mock the politics in Malaysia. However, as this "tradition" was passed down "generation after generation", the purpose of the Merdeka Night has turned from "celebrating Malaysia's Independence Day" to "prom". All they do during the Merdeka Night are dress up, watch some random performances and take photos. Sure, they did some parody of the politicians in Malaysia by naming the organising committee members after them, but there wasn't really any follow up to that so it was quite a pointless thing to do.

But anyhoo, it's not like Malaysia really deserves our time and effort in celebrating its Independence Day. I mean, c'mon, after 54 years of so called independence, we don't feel like that's the case at all!! We still feel like we're being occupied by some screwed up colonialist who doesn't give two shits about the country's well being. All they care about is to exploit the country for their own benefit. Independence my ass.

Okay, enough with that wretched country, let's get back to the "prom night".

I brought my camera along, thinking that I'll be able to take some nice photos of my friends all dressed up. Unfortunately, I only have like 2 or 3 photos of my own after the whole night. Reason being, I was too busy snapping for others, and I was a bit reluctant to trouble other people to use my camera to snap for me, as the lighting was bad and it was not easy to control a DSLR with a flashgun without fail shooting a few times first. But regardless, I had fun taking photos of all the beautiful guys and girls there. This one here is one of my favourite shot, not so much because of the subjects, more because of the new way of editing I'm trying out. I can't describe it in words properly, but I'm taking a different approach in post processing my photos, and I'm quite happy with this photo.
The thing that I have to learn now, is to learn to control the wide angle lens' distortion when shooting people.
Well, most of the time, if I stand far enough, everything will look fine, just like in this picture. This is by the way, a photo of the whole production crew. The director, Chong Yen is standing on the left of the me inside the photo, while the main videographer and video editor, is the guy all the way to the left of this photo, the dude having his L lens straped to his back.
And again, the distortion when we get a little bit up close and personal! Notice Soon Ngen's arm, the dude on the left.
Overall, I'm really glad that we put in effort to do this, and I was quite pleased with the final product. I'm not sure if I'm able to share it here, but I'll try my best once it's available on Youtube. Su Yun here, is one of the most impressive actress in the movie. Though her scene was a very short one, but she made it even shorter by finishing the filming of the scene in 2 takes!! Like a pro!!

And the night did not end just there of course!! We proceeded to some "after party" in one of our friends' room, and that part of the night, will be another story, which will probably not be told in detail, due to some events that transcended. Basically, we went to Chiz's room to drink, and some of us(this time not me!) got totally wasted. The most epic thing was, we drank from 12am to 7am. =)

Ooopps, look at the time now, I'm sorry for the abrupt end, but I've gotta head out for dinner now. Till next post!! =))